Please Answer?!

[howierd]

Please guys, will someone answer my question about going from DX8.0 to 9.0 graphics cards?

My question is - will moving up to a DX9 card make HL2 look more like doom3 in the respect of NORMAL MAPPING and ALL THE HOT EFFECTS DEMOED a year ago? The peoples faces as of now look nice but are very flat and texture mapped, they dont seem to react to lights the way faces did in doom...same as the walls, a brick wall looks nice and textured but flat...
On my gf4ti4200 the game looks great, but doesnt seem to have normal maps? So will someone please tell me, does HL2 still use normal mapping and where can I see proof of it besides the demo from a year ago?

For instance, in the begining when youre in a rundown building, are the walls, and even the TEARS IN TEH WALLPAPER flat or are they normal mapped and have depth like in the tech demo?

Anywhere to see screen shots or a review comparing the graphics from 8 to 9!?

THANKS!

 

[psalm]

Not sure about the DX8 vs. DX9.. but HL2 on my Geforce 6800 looks better than Doom 3 ever did.

 

[howierd]

Thanks!
Ok, so can I have some proof besides a woohoo hl2 kicks dooms ass, beacause we know it does, but really does it use normal mapping? I mean HL2 kicks dooms ass even if it doesnt, because youre not stuck in a dark corridor (doom still looks hot but..) at least hl2 is a WORLD, large and beautiful...but I need to see some shots, (all the screenshots ive seen look flat and not so great, like my gef4) that show me the shine, the displacement mapping, etc...again like the tech demo from last year, they showed the one wall, one polygon, that looked like 1000s of bricks, at every angle!... the walls and stuff on my gf4 look flat, nicely textured, but FLAt!

would you mind posting some screenshots of lets say a persons face or a wall with normal mapping, the light effecting them, etc?

also, what about the HDRI lighting etc? do you need dx9 for that?

Thanks!

 

[light_weight]

I'm using a pci express 5750 and the walls look flat.

 

[howierd]

ok guys, I went out and got a Geforce 6800 with 128 megs of ram.
Suppose to rock...
Now the game crawls with AA on, etc... on my 2.2 ghz machine...sound stutters,etc...
how do i fix this?

 

[JPack]

Resolution? Don't max out everything since you'll be CPU-bound.

 

[howierd]

huh? what do you mean?
im at 1024x768
ungh the stuttering is killing me